Estate records are the land records for the common social classes in Ireland. The large landed estates were held by the upper social class who leased the property to tenants throughout Ireland. Some were absentee landlords, living elsewhere in the British Isles but holding property in Ireland. The land agent managed these properties on behalf of the landlord and had broad oversight for the lives of those living on the land. In some instances, the land was held by institutions, incorporated cities, universities, and dioceses.

To search the Irish estate records, the researcher needs to identify the name of the landlord and if the records of that estate still survive. During the early twentieth century, many large landed houses and the records of these tenants were destroyed during movement for independence. Estate records may give names, relationships, ages, maps with property descriptions, residences of emigrants and other details of value to the family historian.

All land in Ireland was held by the Crown according to the feudal doctrine of allodial tenure and would revert (escheat) to the Crown in instances of attainder, felony or lacking a legal heir. However, there are some estates that were directly managed by the Crown and its overseers. The records for these estates are generally in good order since the Crown operations were well managed.

The landed families in Ireland held thousands of acres of estate lands that were the backbone of the Irish economy. Farmers and tenants leased their property from these landholders and paid semi-annual rents. When they were unable to pay their rents, they were listed in arrears and if too much debt accumulated, they were often evicted from these lands and the records name the new tenants who replaced them. When a husband died, his name is often struck through and the name of the wife, son, or other family member is written into the record. In instances where two men or women of the same name are tenants on the estate, some identifier is affixed to their names to distinguish between them. For men, this may be "Sr." and "Jr." denoting that one is older than the other, not necessarily father and son. For women, the name of their husband or father may be in parentheses.

The effects of a depressed economy in the nineteenth century brought about by significant rate increases to support the poor law to address the Great Famine, many of the large landed estates were foreclosed by the British Crown. These became known as the "encumbered" estates. A registry known as the Encumbered Estates Court was established in Dublin in 1849 to deal with the significant numbers of bankrupt estates during this era. Approximately 3,000 estates were sold off from 1849-1857 totaling five million acres. With a tenantry weakened by sickness and emigration, their downfall in turn brought about the downfall of the great landed estates.

The landed estates were run as private businesses, so each landholder would determine the length of time and the terms for each lease for their tenants. Leases were often granted for the length of a tenants life and the conditions surrounding the lease would vary depending on the value of the property, the ages of those lives named and other factors. When named in a lease as lives, it was not uncommon for names, relationships, ages and sometimes death information being recorded in the records of the estate. The most common types of leases are described below.

One Life and 21 Years - This type of lease extended the mercy of a providing parent named in the lease, ensuring that upon their death, any child just born would be allowed to remain on the land until they arrived at the full age of twenty-one. Thus, the lessor would be named and twenty-one years after their death, the terms of the lease could be renegotiated provided that those remaining on the land had been able to pay the rents in the intervening years.

Two Lives - In the instance of a two lives lease, the lessor was usually named along with another direct family member, relative or friend. For instance, a father obtaining a lease may name his youngest son as the other life in the lease. As long as the father or the youngest son are living, the terms and conditions of the lease amount are in effect. Upon the death of both, the landholder may renegotiate the lease with other family members or choose new tenants.

Three Lives - A lease naming three lives worked the same as the two lives lease only three individuals were named. Often this would be a father and perhaps his two youngest sons, a brother, or his nephews. In later years, with the effects of the Great Famine and emigration, prominent people were named in the leases so that it would be common knowledge when they had died. Overseers of the landed estates had an enormous task trying to determine the deaths for people named in the leases who had emigrated overseas.

In some instances, tenants resided on the land at the will of the landholder, thus tenants at will. This was the worst of all types of leases as the landlord could decide at any time that they were going to remove the tenants from their lands. During the Great Famine, there were a number of landlords who availed themselves of this clause and evicted many of their tenants followed by the tearing down of their dwelling places. A good example of this type of record is in The National Archives, London, Record Group HO 45/2521 Ireland: Irish Poor Law Boundary Commission listing tenants in particular townlands who have had their dwellings pulled down.

Landlords and the Poor Law Unions also capitalized on the opportunity to effectively clear their estates and the poor houses by paying the passage for their poorer tenants whom they were now having to support during the Great Famine. The top-ten landlords emigrating tenants in the nineteenth century were:

The large landed estates were governed by their own Manorial court also called the court baron (curia magna). The power was granted by royal prerogative and was empowered to administer the regulations set out as the custom of the manor. The court primarily dealt with issues pertaining to the governing of the manor, particularly the payment of services due to the Lord of the Manor, disputes among tenants, debts, trespassing, unlawful taking of game or wood on the estate. The court convened every two to three weeks or more frequently if there was business to conduct. Records for some of these courts still exist among the papers of the estates, a good example being the Earl of Antrim.

The National Library of Ireland holds the largest collection of estate papers in the Republic of Ireland. These are original deposited manuscripts that are often accompanied by maps and rentals listing tenants names. If researching in person, a separate reader's ticket is required for the manuscript reading room in addition to the NLI readers ticket. Some of the collections have detailed listings available at the NLI website.
WebsiteManuscript Collection Lists

This is a list of known properties of estates of at least 500 acres arranged by county and known references to estate papers deposited in record offices - it is an incomplete list, so researchers may be able to identify additional landholders and their records from other sources. (Note: When a landholder is listed with less than 500 acres, they may have property in more than one county.) Inventories of available estate papers have been included in Tracing Your Irish Ancestors by John Grenham, and for 350 estates in the counties of the Province of Ulster, namely, Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone in Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors by William J. Roulston. In the following listing, the names of the landholders are listed by county, followed by their residence, number of acres, and the archive of deposited records when known. The names Grenham and Roulston are listed if there is descriptive information in their publications, often locality information on townlands, parishes, or baronies. The reader is directed to those volumes for additional information to use in tandem with their online research. The basis for the following list is taken from U. H. Hussey De Burgh's The Landowners of Ireland published in 1878. Land in Ireland often remained in the same landholding families for multiple generations, so the surname of the owners in the mid-nineteenth century may also relate to earlier time periods.

Archival descriptive information in the following list from the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) eCatalogue is used under the terms of the Open Government License

Adair, Henry, Loughanmore, Parkgate, Antrim 2,071 acres; Leases for townlands on the estate for the years 1735-1761, PRONI Ref: D3860/A/3; Leases for the years 1785-1846 PRONI Ref: D3860/A/4; Leases for the years 1837-1850, PRONI Ref: D3860/A/6; Twenty-five leases of lands in Straid, parish of Ballynure, County Antrim, PRONI Ref: D3860/A/4; Leases of the Clements/Crymble/Ellis property in the Town of Carrickfergus PRONI Ref: D3860/B/5; Four title deeds of the Clements family, Rashee Parish, Co. Antrim, 1696-1707 PRONI Ref: D3860/B/6; Title deeds or deeds of settlement for property in the Town of Carrickfergus, 1708-1822, PRONI Ref: D3860/B/7; Twenty-five title deeds to Altivaddy and Tuberlady, Carrickfergus, 1795-1802, PRONI Ref: D3860/B/8; Map of the Estate of Francis Clements, 1751, PRONI Ref: D3860/B/9 Introduction to the Adair of Loughanmore PapersFamilySearch Family TreeRoulston and Grenham

Boyd, Abraham and Jane Rochfort Butler Belvidere, Survey of the Estates of Abraham Boyd Esquire and the Countess of Belvedere in the County of West Meath, (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1984).

Dooley, Terence A.M., Mary Ann Lyons, ed. Sources for the History of Landed Estates in Ireland Maynooth Research Guides for Irish Local History: Number 2 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2000).

Downshire, Arthur Blundell Sandys Trumbull Hill, 3d Marquis, 1788-1845 and Maguire, W. A., Letters of a Great Irish Landlord: A Selection from the Estate Correspondence of the Third Marquess of Downshire, 1809-45, (Belfast: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1974).